Intersection:
Public Place in a New Jamaica
by
Kevin Anthony Young
Bachelor of Architecture
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
June 1992
Submitted to the Department of Architecture
in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree
Master of Science in Architecture Studies
at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
June 1995
@ 1995 Kevin Anthony Young. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to
M.I.T. permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic
copies of this thesis document in whole or in part.
Siqnature of the Author
Kevin A.Young
Certified byWilliam L. Porter
Accepted by
Roy Strickland
Dgsirent of Architecture
, My12, 1995
Professor of Architecture
Thesis Superyisor
AfsocIiateProfessor of Architecture
Chairman, Departmental Committee for Graduate Studies
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2
Intersection:
Public Place in a New Jamaica
Submitted to the Department of Architecture
in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree
Master of Science inArchitecture Studies
at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
June 1995
by
Kevin Anthony Young
Abstract
Jamaica, a microcosm of the Caribbean and the developing world, is heir
to an ambivalent legacy. While she benefits from a unique cultural tradition
brought inpart through colonialism, she suffers from the nihilistic tendency
to imitate colonial socio-economic practices. The society thus becomes
more and more polarized, and is poorer for it.
The condition is a paradigm for architecture and urbanism. The city
stratifies itself into political and economic zones, allowing for its own
demise through the lack of communication and cross-fertilization.
In anticipation of the city's continued explosion, the thesis explores the
possibility of a new public place at which the separate social groups may
converge. It will facilitate the accessibility of Jamaicans to their own
diverse population, and foster self-pride as they recall and celebrate their
traditions, accomplishments and ambitions.
The program therefore consists of public facilities which bring Jamaican
cultural traditions into relationship with each other. The complex is
intended to be a multi- purpose sports/festival ground. Its focus will be a
Museum of National Heritage.
The site is National Heroes' Park, a 68 -acre oval which sits at the
boundary of the parishes of Kingston and St. Andrew and marks the
entrance to the old city of Kingston, capital of Jamaica. It originated as a
horse-racing course in the 19th century but has been transformed
successively over the years. Part of it is now dedicated as a shrine to
Jamaica's National Heroes - the seven men and woman who were
deemed to be instrumental in the building of the nation.
Thesis Supervisor:
Title:
William L. Porter
Norman and Muriel B.Leventhal
Professor of Architecture and Planning
Thesis Readers:
Ellen Dunham-Jones
Attilio Petruciolli
3
4
Acknowledgements
Big up to the following:
Granny B,for asking one evening, "Why doesn't somebody
propose something for Heroes' Park?";
Bill Porter, for his wise and patient guidance, and a refreshing dose of
coolness;
Ellen Dunham-Jones and Attilio Petruciolli, for their timely and thoughtful
criticisms;
Juan Calvo, for his insight when I was, thinking back, in grave need of
some;
Jihad, for the garage space, the good advice in general, and at times, a
swift kick in the pants;
Bob, for the music;
Errol Alberga jr., for introducing me to a discipline, and then watching
with keen interest as I learned;
Aunt, for making sure I ate properly those first years away;
Rocky, for being my first fan and cheerleader;
Mom and Dad, whose love for, support of, and belief in me has been
selfless and unchanging. Though no words could express my gratitude, I
rest in the knowledge that now, as always, you share inthe pride and
relief of this accomplishment.
Dee, my love and my sunshine, for making the future worth every minute
of this effort.
God, for everything ...
5
6
Contents
Abstract
3
Acknowledgements
5
Table of Contents
7
part I. SITE ( The Physical and Social Context)
1.1 Thoughts on A Mixed Culture
9
1.2 The Park as Public Place
27
part 1\.PROJECT
2.1 The Space of Pluralism
37
2.2 Urban Moves, or One -One Cocoa...
41
2.3 Conclusion
61
Bibliography
65
Illustration Credits
67
7
f 1.1.1
8
Part of Mural, University of the West Indies, Mona.
. SITE
"The night starts to fade,
but the moonlight lingers on;
There are wonders for everyone!
The stars shine so bright,
but they're fading after dawn;
There is magic in Kingston town..."
Clancy Eccles and Kendrick Patrick
Thoughts on A Mixed Culture
Jamaica is the quintessential pluralist* society, and Kingston, the pluralist
city. This has to do with the fact that West Indian colonialism was a
unique project: When Great Britain pushed into the New World in the 17th
and 18th centuries, she may have found fertile lands, but certainly no
trace of an indigenous culture. The extermination of the Caribbean
Indians by the Spanish, and their own subsequent expulsion, had seen to
it that there was no reference, no existing foundations (as there would be
in India , or in Africa and the Middle East) upon which Britannia could
propagate her aspirations of empire. Into this cultural vacuum came two
distinct groups: Expatriates from the motherland; and Africans inshackles,
bound to a life of slavery. They were later joined by Chinese and Indian
labourers in the 19th century, as well as Semitic peoples in search of
fortune inthe prosperous economic climate of those years. Their various
pluralism (Random House): a theory that there is more than one basic substance
or principle.
9
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f 1.1.2
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10
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BeHin's Map of Kingston, c.1760.
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cultures, (and their blood inmany cases) merged inextricably over time to
create a diverse society of amicable, if not always co-operative, accord.
This has had decisive implications for urban development. B.W. Higman
has observed that: "In the Jamaica of the 18th and 19th centuries, there
were two competing attitudes to space and its organization. One, derived
from the European frame of mind, sought to create a rigidly ordered,
geometric landscape. The other, with its roots in Africa, placed a greater
value on fluid natural lines"1 . In fact neither attitude could materialize in a
pure form. The European model, for all its 'legitimate' power, could not
overcome the will of the mass slave population, and indeed the contour of
the land, in the shaping of the public realm. The African mentality by
comparison, could not fully withstand the cultural assault and socioeconomic privations exacted upon it by colonial domination. The colonist
and the conquered were forced to adapt to the new environment.
Bellin's 1760 map of Kingston (planned by John Goffe in 1692) reveals
the first futile attempt at idealism. An account by Johnson reads: "The
town was drawn up as a parallelogram, one mile long from Port Royal
Street to North Street, and half mile wide from East to West Streets. The
main street (King) ran South to North in the dead centre, and it was
intersected dead centre also by Queen Street." 2 Where both "royal
streets" intersected was reserved for a four-acre square to be used as a
military camp (hence the name 'Parade Square'). The tabula rasa context
influenced the translation of the theoretical Renaissance utopia - then in
use in Europe for the construction of several 'new towns' - to Caribbean
1In Jamaica Surveyed, p291.
2
Anthony Johnson, Kingston: Portrait of ACity, p47.
11
11.1.4
nwf~ltF'
View of Vitry-Le-Francois, France, 1634.
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I 1.1.5
12
Plan of Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 1622.
shores 3 . In this, Kingston would briefly resemble American colonial towns
such as Pittsburgh and Savannah. In fairness, this was not a totally
arbitrary geometric exercise: the City, after all existed primarily for the
defense of its inhabitants, who were subject to the horrors of frequent
pillage from competing colonial powers. It was thus practical to lay out its
borders more or less equidistant from a central gathering area, whose
primary function was to house the military battalions charged with its
defense. Also, the city's North-South orientation allowed the flow of
prevailing winds to cool the hot, dusty Liguanea Plain*.
The imposed uniformity of the plan nevertheless begins to ridicule its own
rigidity. The main streets must contort in order to connect to pre-existing
routes to and from the city. Their dominance is compromised. What
Rowe calls "conditions of confusion and picturesque" - in the case of
Kingston, river and stream beds later built as drainage ditches and gullies
- create their own irrational order between the grid 4 .
Outside the city, early plantation maps showed a similar confounding of
this attempted regimentation. The mainstay of the colonial economy was
the production of primary products (mainly sugar) for export to the
metropole, and the majority of Jamaicans lived and worked within this
spatial context. The landscape was thus, for the most part, partitioned by
the borders of such entities, and in fact, Kingston's future expansion would
be dependent on the atrophy of the sugar plantation. It is here that two
trains of thought vis a vis space planning may be observed. The immense
3
John Reps, The Making of Urban America, p12.
The gently sloping 150,000 acre parcel on which Kingston is built: - Johnson
purports the name to have derived from 'iguana', the large reptilian which would
have been found inabundance there at the time of colonization.
4
Colin Rowe, Collage City, p107.
13
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Laborie's Ideal Plan for a Coffee Plantation, 1798.
11.1.7
f 1.1.8
Plan of Lucky Valley Estate, Clarendon, 1816.
f 1.1.9 View of the 'Free Village' of Sligoville, St. Catherine, 1843.
14
Plan of Belvedere Estate, St. Thomas, 1800
grounds were often laid out ina more or less triangular fashion, with great
house, sugar-mills and works, and slave quarters occupying the three
apices. While the great house functions adhered strictly to a precise
geometric ordering, the slave village was patterned on a different
conception. From the main road reaching the rest of the property, the
village grew off in multiple branches to either side, in every which way
describable, creating a motley composition on the land. Higman recounts
an 18th century description: "Inever witnessed on the stage a scene so
picturesque as a Negro village.. Each house is surrounded by a separate
garden, and the whole is intersected by lanes, bordered with all kinds of
sweet-smelling and flowering plants". Significantly, the writer, a planter
contemplating his own operations, made note of the vitality of his slaves'
lifestyle, in spite of their spartan accommodations. No doubt he was privy
to the workers' assertion of independence and individual expression, in
reaction to the authoritarianism of plantation life. Paradoxically, the
arrangement was not far removed from the British tendency to plan
gardens in Romantic, fluid curves, as an escape from the hardness of
urbanity. This place of harmonious conflict where, as Higman says, "myth
and reality converged", was the literal and symbolic foundation of the
future city.
The unplanned growth of Kingston was accelerated by the abolition of the
slave trade and the subsequent downfall of sugar production, the
plantocracy, and sugar estates. But while it was economic necessity
which drove planters to subdivide larger and larger sections of their
properties for purchase by Kingstonians, the fragmentation of the urban
fabric continued a trend of land privatization begun even before
emancipation in 1838. Alook at Lowndes's map (f 1.1.10) already shows
15
PondR-
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S11.10
1. A-j
Lowndes's Map of Kingston and Surroundings, c.1770.
16
6'A'
1.1.11
16
Plan of Hampton Court Estate Subdivision, St .Thomas, 1847.
the grid of Kingston surrounded by pockets of small holdings called 'pens'.
It was these semi-urban havens to which the city's merchants retired in
the evenings to escape the hot and sometimes squalid atmosphere of the
city centre, or which the rural planter kept for his lengthy stays during the
theater season. Furthermore, a new intermediate class had entered the
picture: Their ranks drew not only from the illicit unions between master
and slave, but from the progressive hybridization of the population due to
the infiltration of multiple ethnic groups described above. The new
bourgeoisie - free, in most cases educated - possessed too the wherewith-all and the desire to live outside of the city in its more comfortable
foothills. Add to this a burgeoning ex-slave population, anxious to forge its
own destiny in the new society, which preferred to live on subsistence
farms in locations far and near to the city, and you have an urbanism
which could astound even the most knowledgeable analyst, or seasoned
traveler. On this, Higman is articulate: "...The end result was a complex
creole mosaic, the Jamaican landscape being composed of intermixed
large and small holdings, some laid out on strict geometric principles and
others following the natural contour of the land. Thus the landscape
mirrored the structure and constituents of the society".
Kingston would eventually creep forward to engulf an area of 192 square
miles, an astonishing 96 times its original area+ . The grid of the old city
occupies only a small portion of this sprawl, leaving one to assume the
presence of a secondary ordering device implicit in the 'plan'. Studying
the growth pattern of Kingston (f 1.1.12-13) shows more clearly the
presence of demographic and economic forces run amok. There is no
+St.Andrew isthe parish immediately bordering Kingston to the North, and
together with it forms the corporate metropolis of Kingston &StAndrew.
17
S
SUBURBS
SON W CARDNl :4C
1889
f 1.1.12
18
-
Kingston and its Suburbs, 1889.
f 1.1.13
Central Kingston, 1972.
mu"
apparent uniformity in direction or layout as multiple streets burst out of
the grid to eat up the landscape. This is not surprising, since Goffe's plan
was designed to have had limited dimensions, and did not lend itself to
expansion beyond a certain point. The Parade can no longer be
HF
considered a centre inthe classic sense, since it retains none of its former
hierarchical dominance, It is more accurate to say that Kingston evolved
pastorally, for the main streets go forth, almost willfully, negotiafing hills
and valleys along the way. They meet each other at various points,
carving public space through time. The city has become one of multiple
nuclei. The order is revealed: It is not singular, but plural.
In the living net of roadways cast over the landscape, zones of intensity
are created at the knot - at the intersection. The traveler must orient
himself at the crossroads. It is only at these moments that he pauses for
rest, reflection (and a drink of rum) before hurrying slap-dash toward
another section of town. The road junction is thick with historical
(GO9D5
association, is imageable in the minds eye. The junction represents the
character of that quarter for which it is the focus. In Kingston there are
several such nodes, with names as colourful as the people who pass
through them: Parade, Cross Roads, Half-Way-Tree, Matilda's Corner,
Papine, for example. Some are mile markers, reminding the traveler of
the distance he has yet to cover; some are the occasion to saunter
through a garden of tropical flowers; some celebrate the transformaion of
the land itself, as at Papine, where the long Hope Road comes to rest
r F -y
TI
E
before another takes its place, shooting up into the Blue Mountains. Their
'boundaries' - their architecture -are often accidental, occurring at the
points of least resistance to the crossing roads. They are built up,
f 1.1.14
Figure-Ground Plans of Three Intersections.
19
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adjusted, and decorated anonymously over time. They are places of many
and varied - in short, plural- encounters.
Modern Kingston, the place of myth and reality, is also plural in the sense
that it simultaneously unites and divides. In analysis, author Katrin Norris
is less sympathetic than Higman: "Jamaica is two nations , sharing the
same space, but hardly touching each other", she wrtes 5 . For her, social
polarization, begun in colonialism, and seen on the plantation, has
survived through independence. The classes do not "converge" at all. She
identifies the irony of a unified propaganda: that as the new nation seeks
to assert its individuality through profession of a unique hybrid society, it
allows itself to duplicate the socio-economic practices of its former
overlords, which is separatist by design. "The more pleasant frontages of
the city", she continues, "seem to hide a mass of humanity living in dense
conditions of squalor". One need not view Kingston through a microscope
before realizing this truth. In downtown, modern towers of shimmering
plate glass stand in stark contrast to the decaying tenements around its
base; well-kept suburban homes seem like hotels and palaces compared
with the zinc-aluminium shantys clustered along the route; BMW's whizz
by slow-moving donkey carts on a daily basis.
They are all symptoms of what I will call 'Third World' modernism.
Marshall Berman explains that developing countries build modernity upon
a "fantasy" of modernism which is observed in advanced nations, rather
than on modern realities internal to their own societies 6 . This entails,
among other things, the observance of norms of comfort and leisure
practiced by the middle classes inAmerica, and not far removed from the
5
1nJamaica - The Search For an Identity, p42.
1n All That isSolid Melts Into Air, p232.
6
21
f 1.1.17
House, Kingston.
f 1.1.18
22
f 1.1.19 Jamaica's Coat-Of-Arms, expressing the National Motto.
House, Kingston.
aristocratic lifestyles of the former planter class in the colonies. Civic life
isthrust out infavour of private pursuits. Community action is sacdficed to
individual gain. Citizens lose identification with each other and thus with
their common destiny. The shopping malls and plazas littering Kingston
are fast becoming the space for gathering, but they alone cannot serve the
public life, since they are places for consumption, and as such
automatically eliminates one income group from the picture. They are the
embodiment of an international, non-specific pattern of behaviour, having
little to do with regional or local culture. In Jamaica the schism of caste
distinction is immediately apparent and pervasive, and it is tragic, since as
a developing nation, she can scarcely afford for this to happen. The
nation, the city, may as well grind to a halt if it is willing to always separate
itself.
By that same token however, Kingston has proved both the appraisals of
Higman and Norris, and, in Berman's own words, shown itself to be
uniquely modern: He later marvels that the "truncated" modernism of
underdevelopment, because of the extreme social, political, and
spiritual/religious pressures under which it grows infuse it with an
"incandescence" which the relaxed modernism of the First World "can
rarely hope to match". This approaches the comment of a Jamaican
movie director: "The Jamaican consciousness is just burning out of sight.
Its history is African. Its culture is European. Its politics, Third World.
We're producing a totally new breed of human being" 7 . The new
Jamaicans must be motivated to put this energy into collective work,
realizing that the advancement of the society depends on individual
discipline and effort, and not the other way around. They must again be
7
Quoted inthe APA guide book, Jamaica, p 79.
23
S1.1.20
King Street, Kingstn, today.
f 1.1.21
24
Church and Vendors, Kingston.
made proud of their history, for this reminds them that there is something
to lose in the tidal wave of internationalism - it gives them something
which is worth fighting for. To reiterate, the aspiration to modernity and
international standards is itself ambitious and forward-thinking, but
becomes detrimental to the developing country when it involves a sacrifice
of regional culture and resources. Or, in the lyrics of another Bob Marley
tune, which, in true form of Rastafarian* egotism, solicits a defiant selfpride: "..Children, get your culture, and don't stay there and jester!..".
Show them this reference point, this common ground. It is the innate
knowledge of each others share in the Jamaican experience, which has
kept them together, and will push them forward.
Finally, The future of Kingston, the "collage city", rests in Colin Rowe's
presentation of the new city as an amalgamation of traditional and modern
planning. "We have two models", he writes. "Wishing to surrender
neither, we wish to qualify both...Allow for the joint existence of the overtly
planned and the genuinely unplanned, of the set-piece and the accident,
of the public and the private, of the state and the individual. It is a
condition of alerted equilibrium which is envisaged.. .Cross-breeding,
assimilation, challenge, imposition, superimposition, conciliation: these
might be given any number of names..."
I prefer to call it...intersection.
*Millenial cult, having its roots inJamaica, which professes the divinity of H.I.M.
Haile Selassie 1(1891-1975), last Emperor of Ethiopia. His christened name was
Ras Tafari, the Ras being a noble title roughly equivalent to Duke.
25
The shame of National Heroes Park
* Now a haven
By Gary Spaulding
-
THE National Heroes Park. Heroes
Heres
Circle. was designated
of
an
to Inter
served conted
utornothe remains
of
great contributors to the nation
but for some time now the park
has been serving a muitiplicity of
other purposes.
It has become a haven for
idlers, a home for squatters, a
playing field for youngsters, short-
for
Jrau~z~
ars~tQova
lovers and rapists
cut for pedestrians. rendezvous for
lovers and the locus for robberies
and rapes.
.
ers had to order flowers to give
some respecttbility to the place.
A few women. who said they
A number of the tombs of great
Jamaicans are In need of repairs.
the naSangster.
DonaldPrime
That
tion's ofsecond
Minister,
is
were einployed to "rake up the
place,' were doing just that; but
more than raking was
much
needed.
high on the list.
When the Gleaner visited the
park on Monday. the area was
parched and barren. When the
Little Theatre Movement honoured
Ranny Williams Saturday with a
ceremony at his tomb. the organis-
One of the workers. referring to
the tomb of Mr. Sangster, ex.
claimed -fDem ito see it waan fix
an' paint! Si. noted that the inscribed words "Prime Minister'
needed to be re-inscribed as they
Ties were loosened. the
had
f 1.2.1 Article in the Daly Glean& (Kingston)
26
P..
idlers, squatters,
laded.
inscribed words were no longer
legible and the tomb itself was a
filthy mess, with broken bottle
and other debris on itHeadstones have not .been
placed on the tombs of' Mallica
"Kapo" Reynolds, internationally
famous sculptor and fenowned revivalst: and Ken Hill, trade union,
journalist and politician, who
both died in 1989.
The front of the park has beein
cone a squatter settlement.
live. demi sleep, dem do every ting
Ist.
dey." one worker explained.
mevene,
naeInabd
day light."
Men, with what seemed to be
their 'belongings". were fast asleep
under the shade of trees when the
Gleaner ventured to that section of
the park. The worker said that the
gates to the park were closed in
the evenings but people still "scaled- the fence.'
The area that encircles the
shrines of the National Heroes is
well kept. The plints and flowers
are well tended. But who could tell
that this is the National Heroes
Park? There is no identifying sign.
The Park as Public Place
Place and space are distinguished thus: a place is a memorable location,
containing some aspect or aspects which identifies it as being unique,
separating it from its surroundings by visual or other sensual perception.
A space on the other hand, is simply an actual or implied enclosure, like
the hole in a donut, or the horizon yonder.
The Caribbean, Jamaica, Kingston, Heroes' Park, by the definition above,
are places. But the designation of 'park' is a misnomer, since it stops
short of fulfilling its purpose: to provide a place of public respite, a retreat
of sorts for the citizen to use, enjoy, and remember. For all its place-like
qualities, it fails to evoke a sense of place. Dunham-Jones goes further to
say that in the experience and apprehension of a place by humans, "..its
objective description becomes layered with multiple subjective memories
and associations through which it becomes meaningful. Sense of place is
strongest in those places which are endowed both with distinctive physical
features and with significant cultural meaning and memories".
8
It is this
quality of 'not yet being' - of not yet drawing such association - that is
fascinating about the site, because it should not be so. Furthermore, the
park as an urban element, in its isolation from the public, parallels the
condition of Jamaican society which I choose to address: that is, the rigid
demarcations of class structure and the subsequent lack of common
ground on which to meet as a people.
It should not be so because at different times, the park seemed to have
been so endowed. It marks two important boundaries in the city: one
physical, the other, socio-political. Its southern tip brushes the dense
8
From course notes, Architecture, Placeand Contemporary Culture.
27
f 1.2.2
f 1.2.3
28
View South on West Heroes' Circle.
Plan of Park Area, today.
urban fabric denoting the edge of the old city of Kingston, which is now
referred to as 'downtown'. Its northern fringe meanwhile, coincides with
the original 'dividing' line of Kingston and its suburban counterpart, the
parish of St. Andrew. While this inadequately describes the mercurial
quality of both physical entities, it is otherwise significant. To the motorist
heading south with some degree of speed on its western tangent, The
sudden expanse of the park frames his vision of old Kingston, allowing
him to experience its facade, and reminding him of the imminent
approach of its confines. To the architect in search of a narrative, The
physicality of the park presents a myriad of associations with the
urban/suburban, disadvantaged/privileged, public/private dialectic. It is an
intermediate zone, resting, as Olive Senior has written, between "the
psychologically and economically exclusive areas of 'uptown' and
'downtown'." It is not quite inside or outside the city, but a combinaton of
the two, as a front porch or verandah would be to a house. Like a
verandah, it is disappointing when one walks up to find it silent and
deserted.
It should not be so because the air around the Park once bristled with
excitement. Great crowds spilled over its edges in 1804 when it was
inaugurated as the Kingston Race Course, and every race day since. As
with so many places of memory, legends persist: of a mysterious obeah
(voodoo) woman who lived on its perimeter and could, as she fancied,
help or hurt ones chances of winning; of a con artist who once 'sold' the
race-course to an unsuspecting buffoon.
Racing was at first an annual event, but the park's prodigious acreage
offered opportunities for all manner of gatherings throughout the year.
1.2.4
View of Par* from Wolmer's Boys' School.
29
f 1.2.5
f 1.2.6
30
View of Kingston Race Course, 1804.
View of National Heroes' Park, 1994.
Circuses, fairs, and expositions could find ample room to present
themselves to the City. The removal of horse-racing to a new location in
the 1950's did not deter constant public use of the space: the park
supported the premier sports field in the Kingston area, if not the entire
island, until the National Stadium was constructed in 1961. In times of
national emergency, as after the great earthquake of 1907, it served as a
tent city for the victims rendered homeless. Beyond that, it was
transformed into a public garden and cemented within the national
consciousness when the decision was made at Independence to turn it
into a shrine for the memory of Jamaica's National Heroes.
This was in fact a watershed event in the life of the park, for,
paradoxically, with its new role as national monument came the blind
removal (the new facilities at the Stadium quickly sucked away that aspect
of the park's importance to the city) of the amenities which made it
desirable for public use. It seems as if the park was to be restored to a
state of pristine grandeur, something to be looked at rather than used.
Regardless of its many prior transformations, it had always retained a link
to the surrounding communities through popular activities, ranging from
the Sunday stroll to the giant town meeting which took place there
intermittently.
Now, following the haphazard removal of each to
specialized areas around town, the park lost much of its vibrance. In
addition, the sixties saw the ringing of the park with modem government
buildings, acquiring for it a stiffness and formality which belied its
relationship with the city, which, as we have seen from historical maps,
was in no way planned to formally connect. So, unlike the integrity of the
Mall with L'Enfants Washington, D.C., Kingston's Heroes' Park as Plaza
Major was an imagined construction. The planting of monuments to the
31
f 1.2.7
f 1.2.8
32
Monument and Facade.
Monuments Over Wall, from left Bogle and Gordon, Bustamante, Manley.
Heroes in a line at the southern sector was a weak gesture of
territorialization, and is not yet powerful enough to provoke the kind of life
envisioned by the Government and planners of the park. It became but a
national symbol, which, as is sometimes the unfortunate case with those,
a shadow of the reality for which it stands. More recenfly, the monuments
were walled off and gated for, it is often defended, their own protection.
The complete impotence of such a move is made even more poignant by
the emptiness of the sixty-five or so other acres from which the public has,
not altogether mysteriously, vanished.
However, Norberg-Schulz, pointing to the reciprocity of public place to
public life, says that public place can begin to stitch these fragments
together, to keep society bound in some coherent whole. It may be able
to accomplish for public life what the public has neglected to make happen
itself. After all, the park has resisted the developer's bulldozer and the
squatter's hut only because it remains a vague part of cultural memory,
and, just maybe, it is more sacred than people will admit. It endures, and
that says something, since so much of the old Jamaica has disappeared.
He writes: "The concept of place has two meanings: place of action, and
point of departure. Hence it represents what is known and what permits
man to depart towards a more distant goal. Only when the individual
possesses such a point, or system of points, of reference, he may act in a
meaningful way" 9 .
The fact is that here is the opportune place for 'place'in Jamaica. Heroes
Park is such a point of reference, needing only to be intensified to be
perceived by the individual and collectively, by the nation. The layers of
9
Christian Norberg -Schulz, Architecture, Meaning and Place, p.30.
33
CA,
8
9a
CO,
co
history, the making of a culture -"what is known" - now dormant, must be
excavated. Its experience, and with it the Jamaican milieu, must be
remembered. To be the "place of action and departure" for the people, it
must bridge the social impasse and be accessible to all. Its use through
the years by Jamaicans legitimizes its continued function as public space;
its presence, the grim reminder of the folly of segregation. Its unkempt
grasses and shade trees, oblivious to the sadness of the park, still burst in
colour after the rainy season, and beckon to the weary traveler. The
proud monuments - to Bustamante and the Heroes of 1865 - peek out
from their concrete prison, giving all a pause; perhaps the sudden hint of
exhilaration which comes with the realization of belonging to a young
nation with so much promise; and maybe the wistful awareness of the
work left undone to achieve it.
And, if at long last one enters its domain, to perhaps sit for a while and
look around, the city, the formidable mountain range which is the spine of
the island, the sky and sea, vehicles and people bustling to and fro in a
faint hum, are displayed like a strange and wonderful movie of
unpredictable ending.
The site, in many ways, / Jamaica, and
undoubtedly, the place for her rendevous.
35
f2.1.1
Walls- A West Kingston Street,
f 2.1.2 Courtyard - Jamaica House ( Office of the Prime Minister), St. Andrew.
I
A
f 2.1.3
36
Fence - Ministry of Agriculture, StAndrew.
i.
PROJECT
"And verily, verily, I'm saying unto the I,
I - nite oneself, and love I - manity;
'Causepuss and dog, they get together,
what's wrong with loving one another;
Puss and dog, dem get together,
what's wrong with you my brother?
Ah so Jah seh.."
Robert Nesta Marley
The Space of Pluralism
The aim therefore, is to extend, rather than contain. Kingston/St.Andrew,
the urban dynamo, has defied control since its inception, and has grown
beyond the wildest dreams (or nightmares, depending on one's outlook) of
planners and residents. The citizen's defense mechanism has been
introverted activity, closing the yards of their homes and businesses off
from public view and access with an architecture of walls, spikes and
grills. As an alternative to the false security of partitioning the city, which
produces further areas of alienation, isolation and danger, I propose an
attitude of reconciliation, compromise and continuity.
The new public place of social interaction must mediate the chaotic, not
create, if indeed it could, a rarefied area where the chaotic is non-existent.
I advocate the simultaneity of the storefront and sky-juice cart, of the
wayward goat and pedigree dog, of money- football and the Manning
37
f 2.1.4
Mobile Sound System.
f 2.1.5
Public Life I - Carnival.
f 2.1.6
38
Public Life II - Watching Cricket at Sabina Park, Kingston.
Cup.* Only this will have summarized the essence of Jamaican pluralism.
The new public place must somehow draw public life, capture its vitality
and richness in an instant, and lead it off again, to others like it elsewhere
in the city. The Park is reconsidered as a place of linkage in the existing
network, a transitory, yet memorable moment, valid only inasmuch at it
serves the impulse of movement and the necessity for access through the
city. The urban gesture then, is the purposeful articulation of the process
which has never been allowed to take place in the dislocated site: that is,
something akin to the meeting of multiple streets and the subsequent
forming of place in the city. it is the mechanization of what we have
observed to be a natural phenomena.
The new park functions, by extension, are designed for meetings at
multiple levels, and are intended to charge the area with popular use.
They are inspired as much by the Jamaican's adroitness insport, and flair
for the theatric, as by the history of the park as a sports ground, and
reinforce that type of activity with a layering of new sporting venues. A
jogging and riding course, football (soccer) field, running track, tennis
courts, volleyball and basketball courts not only offer opportunities for
informal gamesmanship, but are attractive to the cross-section of the
public which prefers the fraternity of spectating at larger national events.
The variety of court surfaces also mediate the different scales of park,
block, sidewalk and building lot. The football green could double as an
outdoor theater for public meetings, celebrations, and concerts, ultimately
providing a space for the climax of yearly Carnival and Festival parades.
Money-football isan informal one-on-one game played with change on desktops;
the Manning Cup isthe pinnacle of schoolboy soccer tournaments.
39
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1. 211
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f2.2.1
40
Notebook.
14
I2
Completing the 'cultural infusion' of the park is a Museum of National
Heritage, w ich, by virtue of its unique location in the new sports/cultural
park, w'l encourage the concentration of exhibitions and scholarly
infor ation relating to Jamaican culture, history, and civics. It would
p vide the prime opportunity to house both the bureaus and galleries of
the Institute of Jamaica, now in disparate locations across Kingston. This
will allow more efficient administration of the Institute's vast reserves, and
the more immediate access to them by the public.
Urban Moves, r One-One Cocoa...*
!
The relationship f the new functions to the city are established through
the overlap of ol
nd new ordering systems. The boundary of the park is
seen no more a divid r, but as the place common to both park and city
where activitie
through whic
presencing
a
/
t
__1E
takes place. Therefore, the park begins a new
the city ou side of the oval perimeter. The city, or more
ark. The p sent edge of the park is softened, its boundary
u
blurre
and peo
wed to filter back and forth, thus changing its
ter as something unto itself and subsequently, the present
apprehension of the space by the public.
The precise strategy lies in a re-visitation of the present ordering system
of the park: It consists of an East-West axis/path on which the National
F
Monuments are placed, which intersects at its centre (site of the War
(7
f 2.2.2
efracti
te the city plan, s likewise the generator for formal movement
char
I
f bot are regulated - almost as a transparent medium
The proverb "One -one cocoa full basket" means that every little bit eventually
The Urban Idea.
s.
.-
41
K
f2.2.3 Aerial View of Central Kingston, today.
-A
f 2.2.5 a,b &c
Progree Ske
g9
mmm
/K
1
3
I ta
I
Vp
I
f 2.2.4
F
L.
b
Overlay Showing Connection of Public Nodes( Park Presence inCity)
(I
f 2.2.6
Overlay Showing City
Presence inParke.
/
p~
4-
9
Ql
.~
Memorial) with a North-South perpendicular. As indicated before, the
design succeeds in nothing more than a local quartering of the park, and
I
1
its screening of public activity. In light of the benign quality of the present
reationship the logic of a formal connection is appropriated with much
servic tp ielf: in a ruder intrusion through the urban fabric.
-fter
e g ometry outside of itself achieves symbolic and practical
kewing
ends: 1) By t ing exception to the old order and freshly breaking its
perimet
emory of the park enclosure is heightened. 2) Pedestrian
,
fun eled along the axes from city to park, and vice-versa. 3)
activ
This a ivity eates the impetus for the reclamation of blighted lots with
ei tr
or the formation of smaller urban parks/playgrounds
al
th
to the park.
e
responds to the angle of incidence of King Street, formerly
the c'
thoroughfare, with the park. King Street ties the Parade to
Ahe
and is still a hub of commercial and official activity, but
s it
g -Anthus its connective potential within the larger city -
n6rth o
wntown, where it swerves to the right and comes to rest
uncerer dniously at the park perimeter. With the establishment of a
rec 1 a
pres
ri
o te park, the old street recaptures some of its
bric and connects the park with the historical city
I
h,
path extends North of the park creating a public
d Water Commission lands upwards to the
pro
Camp Road an
ingst
.
cam Avenue, cultural district of
In the West-East direction, continuing the axis of the
monuments out into the city, a green belt joins existing public nodes such
s Trenc
ewish Cemetery, Emmet Park, Sabina Park
47
Si
D.
-
AY L
f 2.2.10
f 2.2.9
Nature Meets Architecture - Cultural Training Centre, St.Andrew.
48
q
Layering of Activities,
and finally the Alpha Institute. The dimension of the city grid (150'x350') is
allowed into the zone of the monuments and is used to organise new
formal gardens in a broad swath crossing the park. Thus, they are seen
as belonging to the city. The potential would exist to create new
monument sites within the new order.
The skew and extension of the axes and their accidental meetings with
the park's extant geometries in tum produce opportunities for new pockets
of activity at the interface of park and city. These are populated with, to
f 2.2.11
Clock Tower, Old Harbour Square.
use Rowe's succinct term, "set pieces", which act as backdrop, evoke
historical association, redefine the character of the park, and create for it
the image it badly lacks. These are as follows:
Bleachers/Sports Area - placed with two sides common to both axes inthe
quarter previously inhabited by the old running/cycle track. Circulation is
continuous along its perimeter, allowing filtration of larger crowds through
its porous infrastructure from the street/park level and an elevated
walkway. Ceremonial entryways align with two minor city streets, the grid
of the new formal gardens, and the old axis toward Wolmer's School*.
f 2.2.12
Colonnade, Port Antonio.
Lockers, showers and other support facilities at its western rim are
wrapped ina curving wall which mimics the hard edge of the old Guinness
C
boxing gym, itself grafted to the ghostly foundations of the race-course
grandstand before it. Buffering the bleachers from the street are the ball
courts and parking areas, accessed by the winding appendage to King St.,
the only vehicular path through the park.
f 2.2.13
Facade - Ward Theatre, Kingston.
One of the most prestigious secondary (high)schools inJamaica, it was first
established in1729 for sons of gentry. Now comprising a girls' school, it has sat in
its present location at the Park's north edge since the late 19th century.
49
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94
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f2.2.15 a, b,c & d Imprssions.
a
b
North Entrance - intersection of the new promenade with the park's
northern curve (with which the erstwhile parish boundary of
Kingston/St.Andrew is coincident). Its proximity to the Wolmer's campus
suggests that a school-related activity make the transition to the park. An
horticultural garden is proposed: students may engage inits planting and
maintenance as a supplement to their biology curriculums. The operation
recalls the historical land use of the Liguanea Plain for cultivation, and
would ideally become an informational showpiece of tropical botany for the
public at large.
Old East Gate - a tower straddles the promenade to close the visual axis
of Torrington Road. It is associated both with the lookouts perched above
colonial Kingston for her defence and the iconic clock tower*, an inevitable
and beloved feature of the Jamaican town square. In deference to the
latter, the ground plane beneath it becomes the 'plate' for a sundial. The
tower itself is the style, the shadow casting object. It will be an
immediately recognizable marker for the place from any point in the city.
East Entrance - formal point of entry to the gardens from the city. Again, a
porous, habitable wall alters its own perception from that of barrier to
threshold. Options for the pedestrian are many: he or she might sit along
its cool stone surface; buy refreshment from a vendor; or cross into the
park via the extended city street or 'peopleduct', an elevated walkway
which weaves through the site, offering the characteristic roof view at
public events.
The saying "Born under the clock" isa true Kingstonian's expression of pride at
being born smack inthe middle of town.
53
f 2.2.16
Sketch.
f 2.2.17
f2.2.18
Sketch.
f 2.2.19
54
Model View (South, towards Downtown).
Model View (South, from Torrington Road).
South Entrance - this existing patch is an anomaly of the park proper,
acting like an appendage which pokes into the denser fabric of downtown.
Its centerpiece is an aged fountain. There, a corral is defined by rough
earth and bordered by stables and a riding path. This could be considered
a starting point for horseback rides around the park, and even into the city
itself. Thus, the park function would come full circle, intensifying
association with the tree-lined perimeter where thoroughbreds once ran.
West Entrance - nucleus of the project, where King Street, the park
perimeter and the axis of monuments converge, and the mixing point of
vehicular and pedestrian traffic - thus the prime location for the main
function space, the Heritage Museum. It is conceived as a regulating
'field', a container for the collision, and to some extent the choreography,
of these various forces. An orthogonal grid of structural columns is
chosen both for its brevity and flexibility in encompassing multi-functional
space, but also is associated with its natural setting: It evokes the
coolness of a grove of cultivated trees, an integral feature of the Jamaican
landscape.
To that end, the whole is shaded by an overextended
horizontal - the roof of this 'forest'.
The rationality of the gridded plan is countered on the interior by shifting
planes responding to the deluge of directional thrusts. While the structure
is largely indifferent, the space within is active and energetic. The floors
are not clearly separate, for the transition from outside through the
building is made via a series of ramps and intermediate planes, which
eventually soar beyond the park and over the street, continuing the
journey on the other side.. The building 'cracks' down its centre, allowing
vegetation and natural light to infiltrate.
55
f 2.2.20
Building Studies, sketches.
f 2.2.21
Building Studies, models.
The planar quality of the facades enhances the notion of breaking
barriers and crossing boundaries. They differ outwardly mainly to draw
attention to the separate zones of the city which they front: on the North,
to the park and suburb, it is softer and more pervious, made with screens
and columns; to the South and the downtown is turned a tougher, more
resilient face.
These are the first and last(ing) impressions of the motorist or pedestrian,
on their journeys to and fro the city and suburb, in and out of nature and
artificiality. Inside, the facades are revealed for all their flatness, and the
gravity of the scene outside descends, as only one who has had the
privilege of a backstage tour can appreciate. Outside, there are so many
people different from ourselves, tossed together in a marvelous mix of
colour, but barely mindful of one another, too busy to notice; moving
amongst, but not with, the next man.
f 2.2.22 b
East Facade.
Inside, there are only people like us, come to learn a little bit more about
Jamaica, about each other, meeting under a giant beam of sunlight, in the
park.
f 2.2.22 c
Norlh Facade.
57
T-
p at
U-
* L---Aw--A L-, -, L i
I
f 2.2.24
58
At the Intersection, montage.
--------
1~1
V
L
~ ~
-
-
f 22.25
At the Intersection, oved
Conclusion: A Full Basket?
The last remaining cocoa is the addition of people to the mix. This would
necessarily involve the projection of the thesis into reality, a liberty I take
for the sake of discussion.
Nothing, a Jamaican would muse, rubs his countrymen the wrong way as
much as the figure of authority commanding their actions and interfering
with their steadfast daily routine. This is why the thesis sets out guidelines
for action in reclaiming the park from its exile - why it does not attempt to
specify every moment, preferring for the enabling quality of the design to
be augmented by and have its gradual effect on the community. Having
introduced a framework conceived in the pluralist spirit, and indeed
derived from latent historical orders, it is left to see what the will of people
can accomplish in re-taking, and keeping their public place. Having given
an impression, I, as architects often do, await expression, the reaction and
critique by the user. This is ultimately what gives it a life, as when the four
walls of a house are embellished by the human touch of its occupants. In
Jamaica, this iswhat gives it permanence, if anything may be called so in
our modern existence. It is with a sincere belief in the potential of
architecture to so empower individuals, and a confidence in the Jamaican
dynamic to affect social adjustment, that I offer this work.
61
62
63
64
Selected Bibliography
Bardi, P.M. The Tropical Gardens of Burle Marx. New York: Reinhold
Publishing Corporation, 1964.
Bedard, Jean-Francois, ed. Cities of Artificial Excavation: The Work of
Peter Eisenman, 1978-1988. Montreal: Centre Canadien d'Architecture/
Rizzoli International Publications, 1994.
Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts Into Air: the Experience of
Modemity. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
Black, Clinton. A New History of Jamaica . Kingston: William Collins and
Sangster Jamaica Limited, 1973.
Curtin, Marguerite, ed. Jamaica's Heritage: an Untapped Resource.
Kingston: The Mill Press, 1991.
Dolan, Winthrop. A Choice of Sundials. Brattleboro, Vt: S.Greene Press,
1975.
Higman, B.W.
Jamaica Surveyed. Kingston: Institute of Jamaica
Publications Limited, 1988.
Johnson, Anthony. Kingston: Portrait of A City. Kingston: Tee Jay
Limited, 1993.
Manley, Michael. The Politics of Change: A Jamaican Testament.
London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1974.
Nettleford, Rex, ed. Jamaica in Independence: Essays on the Early
Years. Kingston: Heinemann Publishers (Caribbean) Limited/ London:
James Currey Limited, 1989.
Nettleford, Rex. " Emancipation, Independence Through the Arts." The
Sunday Gleaner (Kingston), July 31, 1994.
Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Architecture, Meaning and Place. New York:
Rizzoli International Publications, 1988.
Norris, Katrin. Jamaica: the Search for an Identity. London, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1962.
Reps, John W. The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning
in the UnitedStates. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965.
Rowe, Colin. Collage City. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press,
1978.
Tschumi, Bernard. Event-Cities. London, England/ Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1994.
Zach, Paul, ed. Insight Guides: Jamaica. Singapore: APA Publications
(HK) Limited, 1993.
65
66
Illustration Credits
Illustrations are by the author, except as noted:
1.1.1
Zach, Insight Guides: Jamaica., p.21.
1.1.2
Johnson, Kingston: Portrait of A City, p. 43.
1.1.3
Johnson, p.v.
1.1.4
Reps, The Making of Urban America: A History of City
Planning inthe United States, p.7.
1.1.5
Reps, p.14.
1.1.6
Higman, Jamaica Surveyed, p.160.
1.1.7
Higman, p.252.
1.1.8
Higman, p.90.
1.1.9
Higman, p.282.
1.1.10
Higman, p.219.
1.1.11
Higman, p.287.
1.1.12
National Library of Jamaica photograph, # N/I 5783.
1.1.13
Jamaica Survey Department Map.
1.1.15
Shell Company Road Map of Jamaica (Kingston: Macmillan
Publishers Limited, 1985, 87, 89).
1.1.19
Programme of The Opening Of Parliament 1994-95 ( Kingston:
Jamaica Printing Services Limited, 1992), p.1.
1.1.21
Zach, p. 128.
1.2.1
Daily Gleaner ( Kingston) article, from Nat'l Library ( Tom
Redcam Ave.) Collection on National Heroes Park, date and
page no. indiscemible.
1.2.2
Based on Survey Dept. Map of 1958.
1.2.5
National Library photograph, # N/381 1.
2.1.4
Zach,p. 129.
2.1.6
Zach, p. 266.
2.2.3
Survey Department aerial photograph, 1988.
2.2.8
Johnson, p. 88.
2.2.11
Zach, p. 188.
67